Blake Lively Slams Cannes Host For Offensive Rape Joke

She argues the controversial joke 'wouldn't have happened in the 1940s'
- byErin Rooney

May
2016

Blake Lively has spoken out against a controversial rape joke made by French comedian and master of ceremonies Laurent Lafitte at the Cannes opening screening of her latest film, Café Society. The joke is speculated to have been directed at Woody Allen, or another director, Roman Polanski. It came on the same day that Woody Allen's son Ronan Farrowwrote a scathing article for The Hollywood Reporterabout the silence in Hollywood surrounding his father's sex abuse allegations.

Laurent Lafitte said: “It’s very nice that you’ve been shooting so many movies in Europe, even if you are not being convicted for rape in the U.S.” The audience's reaction was complete shock - there were audible gasps.

Blake Lively has since spoken to Variety about the incident, indicating that she felt sick about the whole thing.

“I think any jokes about rape, homophobia or Hitler is not a joke,” she said. “I think that was a hard thing to swallow in 30 seconds. Film festivals are such beautiful, respectful festivals of film and artists and to have that, it felt like it wouldn’t have happened if it was in the 1940s. I can’t imagine Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby going out and doing that. It was more disappointing for the artists in the room that someone was going up there making jokes about something that wasn’t funny.”

She went on to say that she wasn't impressed by the comedian's other material either.

“But it wasn’t just Woody. He made three homophobic comments in a row. A Hitler joke. And a rape joke. It was all within 30 seconds … What on Earth was happening? It was really confusing.”